[2] Jones Hall is also frequently rented as a venue for contemporary pop musicians and other performers and is estimated to draw over 400,000 audience members yearly.

Officially completed on October 2, 1966, at the cost of $7.4 million, it is named after Jesse H. Jones, a former United States Secretary of Commerce and Houstonian.

[3] (For the Hall's opening concert a special work was commissioned of the American composer Alan Hovhaness entitled 'Ode to the Temple of Sound').

[6] Designed by the Houston-based architectural firm Caudill Rowlett Scott, the hall, which occupies an entire city block, features a white Italian marble exterior with eight-story tall columns.

The lobby is dominated by a 60-foot (18 m) high ceiling featuring a massive hanging bronze sculpture by Richard Lippold entitled "Gemini II".